Back to the Future is a French-American animated science-fiction comedy adventure television series for television based on the live-action Back to the Future movie trilogy. The show lasted two seasons, each featuring 13 episodes, and ran on CBS from September 14, 1991 to December 26, 1992. It was rerun until August 14, 1993 on CBS. The network chose not to renew the show for a third season. It was later rerun on FOX, as a part of the FoxBox block, from March 22 to August 30, 2003. It was the first production of Universal Cartoon Studios. Although the series takes place after the movies, producer Bob Gale has stated that the animated series and the comic books take place in their own 'what if' and alternate timelines. This show marked the debut television appearance of Bill Nye on a nationally broadcast show.
Premise
Following the conclusion of Back to the Future Part III, in 1991, Dr. Emmett Brown moved into a farm in Hill Valley with his wife Clara, their sons Jules and Verne, and the family dog, Einstein. As with the films, time travel was achieved through the use of a modified DeLorean, which had apparently been re-built after it was destroyed at the end of the trilogy. The DeLorean now has voice-activated "time circuits" and can also travel instantaneously to different locations in space and time, in addition to folding into a suitcase. The characters also travel through time using the steam enginetime machine Doc invented at the end of the third film. Although Marty McFly is the show's main character and Jennifer Parker makes occasional appearances, the show focused primarily on the Brown family, whereas the movies focused on the McFly family. The film's villain, Biff Tannen, also appeared frequently. In addition, relatives of McFly, Brown, and Tannen families were plentiful in the past or future parallel time zones visited. Unlike the films, which took place entirely in Hill Valley and the surrounding area, the series frequently took the characters to exotic locations. At the end of every episode, Doc Brown would appear to do an experiment, often related to the episode's plot. The first season also included post-credits segments with Biff Tannen telling a joke related to the episode, alluding to actor Thomas F. Wilson's career as a stand-up comedian.
Intro
The music for the intro is a re-created version of "Back in Time", originally by Huey Lewis and the News. The intro begins with Doc Brown surprised when seeing the time on his watch, before he enters the DeLorean. As he drives away, he heads to May 19, 2015 where he picks up Marty McFly, to June 10, 1885 to collect Clara, and to prehistoric times to grab Jules and Verne, before returning to 1991. The following scene depicts the group sitting down to dinner, before noticing Einstein is missing. They subsequently find him driving the steam train time machine to an unknown time. For the second season, the intro replaces the collection of the main characters with clips of the first season and ends with the same sequence from season one's intro.
Characters
Marty McFly – The main character of the series. Marty spends a lot of time visiting the Brown house where Doc, Clara, and their sons live. He continues to travel through time alongside Jennifer, Doc and the rest of the Brown family on many of their misadventures. Marty and Jennifer become students at Hill Valley College after graduating from Hill Valley High School.
Jennifer Parker – Marty's girlfriend.
Emmett "Doc" Brown – Marty's best friend and the inventor of the time machine, which he built out of a DeLorean sports car in 1985 and later built a locomotive time machine from 1885 to 1895. He lives with Clara and two sons Jules and Verne.
Einstein – The sheep dog living with Doc, Clara, Jules, and Verne. He is also Marty's friend.
Clara Clayton Brown – Doc's wife, who, along with the rest of the family, moved to the 20th century. She and the Browns lived in a farmhouse outside Hill Valley in 1991. Clara has settled well into 20th century life, and became a teacher at Hill Valley Elementary. She occasionally joins her husband, sons, and Marty on their time travel road trips.
Jules Brown – Verne's elder brother. His middle name is Erastosthenes. Unlike younger brother Verne, Jules is intelligent for his age and, similarly to his father, uses long words in his everyday vocabulary. He calls Marty McFly "Martin". Jules is top of the class in his school; however, he is not very popular and has but a few friends. He has a crush on his classmate Franny Philips and enjoys baseball and inventing.
Verne Brown – Jules' younger brother. He is a cheeky young man; however, he hates losing and doing chores. He likes video games and watching television. He is almost always seen wearing a raccoon skin cap. Unlike his older brother Jules, Verne is quite popular at school and has many friends, including Marty McFly. He acts his age, unlike Jules. Verne often uses his favorite insult, "skunkhead", primarily toward his older brother. Verne also developed a rivalry with Biff Tannen's son, Biff Jr.
Biff Tannen – Biff is the great-grandson of Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen and is the present day villain of the series, although most episodes feature his numerous ancestors or descendants instead. In the series, Biff also has a son, Biff Jr.. During the first season, Biff would tell a joke after the end credits.
Mary Steenburgen and Thomas F. Wilson voiced their characters from the films. Christopher Lloyd played Doc Brown in the live-action segments which opened and closed each episode while Dan Castellaneta provided the animated Doc Brown's voice. James Tolkan was also featured as a guest voice in one episode, however he returned only to voice a completely different character as opposed to his Principal Strickland character from the films. In addition, Bill Nye appeared as Dr. Brown's Lab Assistant during the live-action segments at the end of each episode performing scientific experiments related to the episode. Nye also serves as the show's technical advisor. These segments later led to Nye getting his own show.
Although the show no longer airs on television, nine VHS cassettes and three laserdisc volumes of the series were released from 1993 to 1994, chronicling 18 of the 26 episodes. The entire complete show was released on DVD on October 20, 2015 for the first time, both individually and as part of the Back to the Future: The Complete Adventures collection. In addition, the first episode from each season of the animated series are included as bonus materials in the Back to the Future: 30th Anniversary Trilogy set. On June 14, 2016, Universal released an individual DVD of the show's first season in Region 1. Season 2 was released on September 13, 2016.
Awards
Daytime Emmy Awards
1992 – Outstanding Film Sound Mixing – Jim Hodson, Bill Koepnick and Harry Andronis
1992 – Outstanding Film Sound Editing – Bill Koepnick, Russell Brower, Jim Hodson, Aaron L. King, Matt Thorne and Mark Keatts
1993 – Outstanding Film Sound Mixing – Ray Leonard and Paca Thomas
1993 – Outstanding Film Sound Editing – Paca Thomas, Ray Leonard, Marc S. Perlman and Melissa Ellis
Comic books
A comic book series was published by Harvey Comics detailing further adventures of the animated show. Two mini-series were published, the first being a four-issue run, the second, a three-issue run subtitled "Forward to the Future" and a "Special" issue was also released, reprinting parts of the first mini-series' first issue. The comics were written by Dwayne McDuffie with art by Nelson Dewey.
